


battlefield blooming

by OpalZvezda



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, throat trauma briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 15:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13978182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalZvezda/pseuds/OpalZvezda
Summary: Dezel was only going to check whether there were any stragglers from the opposing army hanging around. (Really.)Or, "what's up with wind seraphim being compulsive adopters, anyway?"





	battlefield blooming

The morning breeze is crisp on Dezel’s face as he picks his way around the edges of the Windriders’ latest battlefield. It’s quiet out this early in the day. The squabblings of crows and other carrion-eaters fighting over the spoils of war reaches his ears, clashing with the more distant sounds of birds singing their waking songs, innocent of the reek of death and the taint of malevolence infecting the blood-stained grasses so nearby.

It was all he could do to wait this long to head out, until past dawn. As a seraph, Dezel doesn’t usually bother sleeping, since it’s unnecessary for him. He spent the entire night antsy, hating having to wander the confines of the Windriders’ camp like a hungry ghost while the world slept around him. With how pitch-black it would be out on these fields at night, though, he’d be worried about stumbling into wild animals or worse. Battlefields are well-known to be crucibles of corruption. Even with everything settling down in the aftermath, there might well be a hellion or two skulking around, which is why Lafarga doesn’t approve of him getting anywhere near them - and why Lafarga doesn’t know he’s gone out.

His goal is not far beyond where the Hyland encampment had been set, where he can see the remains of some houses clustered together into a small village. Presumably, they were destroyed by the opposing forces to drive away anyone who might interfere or offer help to the Rolance side. At least one of the shells is still smoking gently, grey ribbons twirling up and away into the wind.

Dezel is curious about those houses for a variety of reasons - not least of which because there could be enemies hiding in there, and despite the entirety of Brad’s current company lacking resonance, he could find some way to warn them if that’s the case. He feels a sense of obligation to them, the only humans he’s ever trusted, and he knows what Lafarga feels for them is outright fondness, so he has an obligation to the older seraph to help protect their human charges as well.

In any case, he’s not going onto the battlefield, just around it. At this distance, and with no active fighting, the pressure of malevolence is no worse than in any of the cities they’ve visited over the years. The crows are welcome to the bodies; Dezel doesn't want to go near them.

In truth, he doesn’t know or care why there was a battle in the first place. It’s just part and parcel of living with the Windriders. Rolance and Hyland hate each other for reasons that he’s yet to understand - human politics are wholly beyond Dezel. What matters to him is that the Windriders won, and most of them are safe, so Lafarga is happy. Other forces, like the soldiers of the actual armies, have to follow rigid orders and specific teachings. Brad’s mercenaries are far more flexible, and they're good at their jobs. As a result, the Hyland forces they were fighting are dead or fled, unless there really is someone hiding in the burnt houses he's quickly approaching.

Dezel reaches out ahead of himself with the wind, sending breezes shivering through the charred timbers of the buildings before he gets to them. There’s no presence in the closest house, but he still peeks in as he reaches it, just to confirm. It lies empty but for the remains of some innocent life: a bed covered in ashes, furniture half-consumed by fire.  _ What a waste. _ At least he doesn’t smell death inside. Hopefully most of these humans fled before the soldiers could reach them.

The next house is equally empty, and the third as well, all of them still and dead in their destruction. He feels strange being here, as though his steps are too loud on the roughly cobbled ‘street' threading through this little village.

A stone well marks the center of town, standing alone and untouched in a tiny gathering square, with a grate of heavy iron covering the top. A tiny chapel stands at one side of the square, some larger building at the other, probably a shop or tavern - the doors of both are smashed in, and many of their windows, and he can tell with the wind that there’s nothing worth checking on in either, only rotting food and left-behind holy objects scattered among the burnt furnishings of each building.

He doesn't bother with reading the wind before looking into each house after that point. If some injured soldier crawled off, Dezel figures, they'd probably end up in one of the nearest buildings to the battlefield. And what are the chances of any given Hyland soldier being resonant enough to see him, anyway? He should probably be more worried about some animal deciding it's too good for carrion.

The second to last house is one of the least damaged, with most of its walls still standing. He has to actually open a door to peer into it - and when he does, there's a noise inside, a soft scrabbling like someone or something moving. Dezel stops, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior, reaching inward with tendrils of breeze to explore the building. The furniture in here is mostly unburnt, but much of it is knocked over and scattered, as if someone was in too much a hurry to right it again.

A tiny, grubby face peeks around the side of a fallen table, one bright blue eye staring right at the doorway he’s in. It seems to realize he’s staring back after a moment, and with a soft squeak, it disappears back behind the table.

_ Well. _ This isn't exactly what he expected.

Cautiously, Dezel takes a step into the house, forgetting entirely about using the wind to scout ahead. What in Hyanoa’s name is he supposed to  _ do _ with a human child? Can it actually see him, or was it just afraid of the door suddenly opening? He can't just leave now that he’s found it - human or seraph, it'd be a betrayal of the kindness Lafarga has always extended to him for Dezel to abandon a child like this.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise,” he calls out softly. “I'm not a soldier. I was trying to find people in the village.” He tries to step a little louder, so as not to startle the human as he comes in a wide arc around the table, leaving several feet between himself and it.

The child is tiny, pressed against the underside of the table and curled up as small as it can manage, gazing up at Dezel with its wide blue eyes full of fear and clearly able to see him after all. Its hair, under the dirt and ash, is a bright red. Everything else but those features are nondescript. He can't even tell its age or sex, though based on its hair length, he'd guess a girl. Humans are weird about that.

He lifts his hands. No weapons - well, he has his pendulums, but the child doesn't need to know that. A peace gesture is a peace gesture. “Are you hurt?” he asks, voice still low.

The child remains silent for a moment, trembling like a rabbit, then slowly shakes its head.

“Want to tell me your name?” gets him another shake of the head, still mute. Swallowing impatience, he replies. “That's fine too. I'm Dezel.” He's barely ever interacted with seraph children, much less human ones, and he isn’t really sure how to. Traveling with a band of mercenaries doesn't exactly afford much opportunity for learning about childcare.

“Dezel,” repeats the child in a whisper, small and piping. He’s more sure from the voice now that the child’s a girl. She speaks up slightly. “Mister, d’you know my parents?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he says.  _ Oh, damn. _ Her parents are probably dead or otherwise gone, and they if she’s not with them, they almost certainly think  _ she’s _ dead. He can’t just leave her, but he can’t exactly drag her out of here, so he’s going to have to get her to trust him. “You mind if I sit down with you?”

“Okay…” she says, uncertainty making her voice waver. He kneels, then sits, trying to move as slowly and non-threateningly as he can. Still, the girl flinches when he leans forward, and stays still and frozen until Dezel has settled and it’s clear he really isn’t going to do anything.

Very carefully, she unfolds and lets her legs stretch out on the ground, color coming back into her tiny fingers now that she’s not gripping her legs so tight to her body. “I w’s lookin’ for 'em when the people in the blue shirts came. They was loud an’ scary, so I came in here...”

“I don’t like the people in the blue shirts either,” he replies soothingly. “They’re very -”

“Mister, why’s your teeth like that?” asks the child abruptly.

… Right. Humans all have very neat teeth, not jagged ones like his. He’s never known why in particular they’re like that, it’s just a part of him and denying it would draw malevolence - so he answers honestly. “Just because.” The girl frowns in response, apparently thinking about it. Just as quickly, though, she drops it to fidget with her sleeves before speaking up again.

“Are you sure you don’t know my parents? They have hair like me. Nobody else in my village does.”

“I haven’t seen them, but I think the people in blue scared everyone in the village away,” Dezel replies.  _ Or killed them, but does a child this small even know what death is? _ He doesn’t want to be the one to introduce her to the concept. “You know, my friends don’t like the people in blue either, and maybe one of them knows your parents, or they can look for them. If you come meet them, I know they’ll help you, okay? Promise. They’re scary, but they only hurt bad people.”

She shrinks back again, doubtful at the mention of more strangers. “You’re  _ sure _ , mister?”

“They’re my friends. Of course I’m sure.”

“... what kind of scary?” she asks hesitantly. “Don’ like scary people.”

“They’re scary so bad people know to be scared of them,” he says, wishing he hadn’t described them like that. “But they wouldn’t hurt a little kid like you. They’re good-hearted.”

“I’m not that little!” she protests, voice rising. He tries to resist smiling - okay, as weird as human children are, their complete lack of understanding just  _ how _ small they are is somehow charming. He was probably like that, once. A thousand years ago. If he asks Lafarga, he’s sure the older seraph will have stories that Dezel doesn’t want to hear about when  _ he _ was a bratty little monster of a child.

“Yeah? I’m a lot taller than you. You’re pretty little from my point of view.”

With a fierce glare on her dirty face, the girl pushes off the ground and stands up, hands on her hips. Her tunic and trousers are ratty and colorless in a way that makes him wonder just how long she’s been apart from her parents. The Hyland forces arrived earlier than the Windriders, but he doesn’t know how long before, or when they might have torched the village. “Now I’m taller ‘n you, mister! So  _ you’re _ little!”

“Oh, is that so?” he asks, amused. “Then if I stand up, you’ll be the little one again.” Over a loud  _ huff _ of complaint from the human girl, Dezel pushes himself off the ground as well, standing up over her; she just about comes to his hip like this. He grins slightly down at her, and then a movement in the doorway catches his eye, making his head jerk up.

A hellion is standing there, framed in the morning sun outside, eyes gleaming.

It looks like it was once a wolf, but malevolence has twisted it, elongated the legs and the snout and put  _ far _ too many teeth into its snarling mouth. A blackish haze, corruption made visible, blurs its figure at the edges. It stays there, unmoving, and he guesses it didn’t expect for there to be prey in here; if it’s still got any wolf instincts, it’s probably trying to size them up and decide whether they’re worth a fight.

Dezel freezes as well, staring it down. He doesn’t look at the girl, but he can tell from the corner of his eye and with a brush of the wind that she’s gone just as still as the rest of this ridiculous tableau, sensing from his reaction that something is wrong. “Don't turn around. Get down behind the table,” he says to her, voice low. He twists mana silently in his head, forming it into the shape of an arte, trying to focus and guide it properly to form the weapon he needs. Time, he just needs  _ time _ before it does anything, just a couple seconds…

The girl whimpers, sinking slowly down but obediently not looking, and the hellion lets out a deep growl. The fur on its back is rising, and Dezel is starting to taste the malevolence rolling off of it, unpleasantly bitter on his tongue and in his nose. It takes a single step forward into the building.

With a wordless yell he lets the mana of the spell release - Hell Gate, forming a bright green cross on the ground that slices into the hellion’s underside with the power of a gale. It yowls in fury and shock, leaping back outside as Dezel jumps forward over the table, pendulums flying from his wrists to pummel it and harry the monster away from the door and away from the girl. He can hear her crying behind him, and tunes it out. It doesn't matter that she's scared. At least she'll be alive to keep feeling that way.

He doesn't have time for any more fancy casting, but there are spells he knows that require less time and less mana, and he uses all of them that he can. He strikes at it with bolts of wind, putting their power behind his pendulums until they start to gouge into its flesh. Its claws scrabble on the cobbles as it tries in vain to attack him, frantic, but Dezel dances away from its snapping maw: he’s one with the wind, always sliding away from it as effortlessly as the air.

For all of that, though, he can’t get in hard enough hits to  _ kill _ the thing, and he doesn’t want to leave it to limp off and become someone else’s problem. All he can do is keep distracting it and hope to wear it down enough that it stops fighting back and he can finish it off.

Focused on the enemy, Dezel almost doesn’t notice the feeling of someone else drawing on the ambient mana, a stone’s throw down the road, down near the well. He can’t give any attention to it until a great seal flashes in the air, standing taller than most of the wrecked buildings, and causes him to stumble slightly as it  _ tugs _ reality towards itself. The hellion fares worse, though - the pull acts far more strongly on it, causing it to fall and tumble over itself, rolling and sliding down the cobbles to the caster’s feet. 

Lafarga is already drawing his daggers as the hellion comes to a stop, and with a swift and easy motion, he kneels down to the thing and neatly slits its throat, jumping back as it thrashes in death. Some malevolence clings to him as he lets it die, but Dezel is too shocked by his guardian being here at  _ all _ to have more than a passing worry about such a small amount of corruption. They risk more than that every day simply by travelling with humans as they do; as long as he takes care, Lafarga will be fine once the little bit of corruption dissipates.

“You’ve been having an exciting morning, I see,” he says with warm amusement. “But you should know better than to play with your targets.” Smiling broadly, the older wind seraph steps carefully around the hellion’s corpse, sparing it no further attention as he strides towards Dezel. 

He can’t help but be flustered at that near-scolding comment, and he can feel his face heating up.  _ Dammit _ . He hates it when Lafarga makes him feel like a little kid. “Was just having trouble getting in a good hit,” he mutters. “I didn’t expect to get in a fight.”

“Oh? Then what were you doing out here?”

“I was... checking for stragglers from Hyland. Didn’t want Brad and them to get surprised by some coward hiding and waiting for a chance to go at one of them.” He finally remembers to snap the pendulums back into place properly at his wrists, keeping his gaze lowered in shame. Lafarga must have noticed him missing when he woke up, and gotten worried, all because he’d taken longer than expected -

With a jolt of adrenaline, Dezel recalls  _ why _ he took longer than planned, and his head snaps back to the building he left the human in. It looks exactly the same as before, but suddenly his heart is pounding with fear at the idea of leaving the girl alone and vulnerable, so he says “Just a second” too loudly to a startled Lafarga and hurries back inside, blinking in the gloom.

He doesn’t think to warn her, and comes around the side of the table so fast that the child hears him, lets out a shrill little scream of fear, and shoves herself away, trying to hide further down the table. He freezes, startled by the reaction.

“I’m sorry, it’s just me -”

“Dezel, what’s going on?”

“Give me a second!” he calls back, slightly frantic. He reaches out to the girl, whose face is damp with tears. She’s hyperventilating; he can feel the disturbance in the air, hear her shaking breaths, and his stomach twists with guilt for having scared her so badly after that fight. It didn’t matter then, in the moment, but now this is  _ his fault _ . He has to fix it.

“It’s just me,” he repeats softly. “It’s okay. Hey. There was a wolf. I was making sure it wouldn’t hurt you, okay? I know I scared you, I’m sorry. Come on, I’m right here, you’re okay.” He keeps his hand out to her, gentle, offering himself as an anchor. She reaches out hesitantly with one grubby-fingered hand, brushing over the material of his glove, seemingly uncertain about whether she actually wants to hold onto him - and then she flings her entire body at him, clutching around his sides in as big a hug as her arms will allow, sobbing her heart out with fear. Dezel, for the third time in the last ten minutes, freezes up. He has no idea what to do with something like…  _ this _ .

At the door he can hear a soft chuckle. He looks up, and Lafarga is leaning in the doorway, still with that fond smile on his face. “Hug her,” he prompts.

Dezel does so, very lightly holding the girl in his arms as she shakes and weeps. Lafarga, after a moment of sighing softly at this attempt, makes little circle motions with his hand, so with a great deal of doubt he starts gently rubbing her back. He can’t quite tell if it’s actually soothing her or if she’s just running out of steam, but either way, the girl’s crying gradually subsides until she’s simply trembling with residual fear and exhaustion.

“Hyland soldiers, hm?” says Lafarga softly.

“That was the plan,” Dezel replies. “Couldn’t just leave her, though.” The girl shifts slightly against him, turning her head to look at the new stranger. Lafarga smiles at her, gentle as always.

“Of course you couldn’t,” he agrees, then addresses the girl. “I’m a friend of Dezel’s. You can call me Lafarga. Are you okay?”

“‘m fine…” she mumbles. Dezel can feel her grip tightening against him, evidently nervous of this new stranger. Then, in a voice scratchy from crying, she asks: “D’you know my parents, mister?”

“No, I don’t think I do, sweetheart,” he says gently. Coming around the side of the table, he kneels next to the both of them, so as to better address the girl. “Did Dezel say he’d help you look for them? That’s the type of thing he’d do.”

Dezel doesn’t know how to feel about that assessment of himself, but he doesn’t object. The girl nods, a little more vigorously, and has to pause to sniffle before talking again. “He said… maybe his friends ‘ld know. An’ you said you was his friend…” The girl seems likely to burst into renewed tears, this time from disappointment; Dezel softly shushes her, hand rubbing her back again, and this time he can tell the little bit of comfort he offers is helping by the way she relaxes once again.

“Well, we have other friends, you know. I’m sure he meant them. Do you want to come meet them? You must be cold and hungry. They’ll have breakfast ready right about now, and I know they’ll share some.” The girl perks up a little at that, whispering “food?” to herself. Something in Lafarga’s expression seems sad, pained; Dezel thinks he must be realizing that they’re unlikely to ever find her parents. He continues, more gently now. “We’ll take you to them, dear, and they’ll take care of you.”

“Okay,” she mumbles. Then, after a pause: “How far ‘re they?”

“I’ll carry you,” Dezel tells her, and the girl immediately turns back to look up at him, eyes wide with something like surprise. “Then you can be just as tall as me. Up you go.” Before she can protest or move away from him, he scoops the girl up, an arm under her legs to support her and the other around her back, nestling her against his chest and facing him. She clutches tighter to him, but doesn’t seem upset by this turn of events, just too startled to react immediately.

Lafarga stands as well, turns that smile onto him again, and mouths  _ good job _ . The praise makes Dezel feel marginally better about having caused all this with his wandering tendencies in the first place. “Let’s hurry then, shall we?” says the older seraph cheerfully, turning back to the doorway. “I’ll lead, since your hands are full.”

Dezel lets him, carrying the girl out into the full morning sunlight; she whimpers and buries her face in his shoulder, probably in pain from the brightness. He murmurs “it’s alright”, patting her back softly as they head down the cobbled street. By now the hellion’s corpse is just a dead wolf crumpled in the middle of the road, albeit one with bits of malevolence still clinging to its fur. He’s glad she isn’t looking up to see it.

The journey back is longer than the one he took out, with Lafarga leading further away from the edge of the battlefield and on a roundabout way to the Windriders’ camp. He supposes the caution is fair; humans draw malevolence more easily than seraphim, and before they get back they have to figure out a plan. They can’t simply walk in, since none of the company are resonant, and all the humans will be able to see is a floating little girl.

For the time being she’s dozed off in Dezel’s arms, thoroughly exhausted from the excitement, but they’ll have to wake her soon. They stop, hidden a short walk from the camp in a clump of trees, to discuss the options in low voices.

“I could guide one of the humans out here,” Lafarga suggests. “Brad will pay attention, even if -”

“No guarantee. It’s better if she walks in herself. We can go part of the way with her, and she can do the rest.” Dezel adjusts his grip on the girl. His arms are starting to ache, but he doesn’t want to disturb her rest any earlier than he has to. “None of them are going to hurt a child wandering into camp.”

The other seraph frowns slightly, but he’s clearly thinking about it, and after a few moments he sighs, nodding as though to himself. “You  _ are _ probably right. And she  _ is _ your human now.” Ignoring Dezel’s slight sputter at that comment, he continues, saying, “It’s your decision, but I do want you to be sure she can physically manage it. I’m not contesting your assessment of the situation, but she’s weak right now.”

“She’s not  _ mine _ ,” he says in protest. “They’ll take care of her afterwards; a little walk won’t hurt her. There’ll be food at the other end, and a cot.” Deciding right then, Dezel gently lowers her to the ground, and as she falls away from him the girl starts to wake from her doze, clutching sleepily at his clothing. “You awake? We’re here, but I need you to do something for me, okay?”

She blinks softly, a few times, and then sneezes. Luckily she has the habit ingrained into her to turn her head down and away, so the sneeze doesn’t end up on Dezel’s clothing, but mostly on the ground. After a couple of sniffles, she asks “What ‘s it, mister?” with a look of mild, tired impatience on her face, like he should have said already.

“I need you to walk the rest of the way to where my friends are staying,” he says softly. “It’s just a little bit further, okay? I’ll come with you.” The half-lie tastes bad in his mouth.

“... Okay. And then I c’n have food?” Her stomach growls softly as she speaks, and her face pinches slightly, as if in dislike of the noise.

“Yeah. Just have to walk a little bit. Can you stand up with me?”

She nods, and - wobbling quite a lot - grabs Dezel’s shoulders to pull herself up, bumping the crown of her head against his chin with a small “ow” even though he doubts she hurt herself. It isn’t exactly what he was planning, but as long as she’s standing, it works; he waits until she detaches herself from him again to stand himself, and glances at Lafarga, still sitting on the ground.

“This is all you,” he says quite seriously. “And I need to clean my daggers. Go on, now.”

Dezel pauses for a moment, frowning slightly, but in a way he knows Lafarga is right. He’s the one who found the girl, so he should be the one to see this through to the end. He reaches down and offers her his hand again. “Come on. Time to go.”

She grabs it with only slight hesitation, clutching tightly, and he starts carefully guiding the girl forward towards the Windriders’ camp. He has to pause for her to go slower a couple times, but it’s only a few minutes’ walk even at her pace, and soon enough they’re close enough to be getting strange looks from the guards at the entrance - who, of course, can only see a little girl with her hand held up for no obvious reason. They gesture to each other briefly, and then one of them turns and hurries into the camp proper.

“Go ahead and go up to the guard,” he says. “You can run ahead. Tell her you’re looking for your parents and you’re hungry.” He lets go of her hand, and she looks up at him in brief surprise.

“You sure, mister?”

“I’m sure. Go on.”

She hesitates a bit longer, but hurries forward like he told her: not running, but a quick, stumbling walk up to the remaining guard, who seems equally surprised to be talking to a little girl. Dezel, already feeling as though he’s abandoning her, stays back while the girl talks to the guard.

He can see the woman’s tension fading out of her stance as she realizes, yes, this really is a child in need, not some kind of underhanded ploy by the enemy. Still, even as she talks to the little girl, she continues glancing around for any actual threats - the Windriders are well-trained, and showing a little bit of kindness won’t change that.

Movement within the camp draws Dezel’s eye, and when he looks over he’s startled to see Brad himself heading for the entrance, with the second gate-guard trailing behind him, carrying something bulky. A basket of some sort, based on the color, or maybe a box. He’s not sure why the guard went to go fetch the band’s leader for something like this; Brad is surprisingly involved in day-to-day affairs, and always gregariously interested in the lives of his mercenaries, but a child turning up at the camp doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he needs to handle personally.

Dezel couldn’t hear the conversation between the girl and the guard at this distance, not without listening in on the wind, but Brad’s voice is booming and cheerful, carrying across the field easily: a true commander’s voice. “Well! And what’s a little rose like this doing here so near the battlefield?” he asks. The girl flinches back, and he immediately seems to realize that he’s scared her, quieting down so that Dezel can no longer hear anything but snatches of words. He listens closer, on snatches of breeze:

“- walked up, sir, on her own.”

“Did she now?”

He can see that she’s fidgeting under all the questioning. “The nice misters said their friends ‘ld help me.” She glances over her shoulder, trying to find him with a troubled expression on her face, and he wonders if he  _ should _ have gone up with her. He and Lafarga have always worried about accidental physical contact with the non-resonant, but besides that, there's no reason he couldn't have.

Brad turns slightly to one of the guards, who gives him such a small shrug that Dezel almost misses the gesture. The company’s leader, however, turns back to the young girl. “And what did these nice misters look like, little rose?”

“One of em’s right here -” And she turns and points directly at where Dezel is standing. Of course, to anyone without resonance, it looks like she’s gesturing to nothing. Both the guards appear flustered by this, but Brad just smiles at her, quite broadly.

“My vision’s not so good. Could you  _ tell _ me what he looks like?”

“He has really sharp teeth that he says ‘re just like that because they are, an’ black clothes, and his hair’s all white like the granny at my village,” she says very quickly. Brad nods in understanding.

“I think I know who you mean,” he says, “and he’s a bit shy of us. Doesn’t like crowds so much. But if he’s brought you here, why, of course we’ll help you out. Come here, missy - you like bread? Look like you haven’t had anything to eat in a while. We’ll get that sorted out.”

Brad gestures the guard with the basket forward, opens it up, and pulls out a soft, golden loaf; the girl lights up, and Dezel could have heard her cry of happiness even without listening closer on the breeze. He withdraws, not wanting to eavesdrop further, now that he’s certain the girl is safe with the company.

Yes, she’ll be alright for now, the girl the seraphim brought to the Windriders. He was worried they might just care for her long enough to get to a city and drop her off at an orphanage, but considering how enamored Brad seems with her, he suspects the girl will have a home with the company for as long as she wants it.

And even if not - Dezel thinks, fleetingly, that he would follow and protect her, his little rose.

**Author's Note:**

> and then the trauma sets in and some random Windrider makes a joke about the ghosts of the dead villagers leading her to them and Rose is terrified forever. I like to think she stole a knife from Brad, said when caught that it was to protect herself from the terrifying ghosts, and Dezel just shook his head at the thought of getting stabbed by this baby and said "that's my Rose."
> 
> ETA: forgot to say thanks SO much to the multiple friends who read the draft of this over and helped me out w it! Seryph, Codi, Rose, and especially Sammi, who doesn't like my title but couldn't think of anything better, so heck off it's staying


End file.
